Bihar Governor Syed Ata Hasnain has urged Indian Foreign Service officers to work towards drawing overseas Biharis more closely into the state’s development, observing that the capabilities of the diaspora ought to be harnessed more effectively to local developmental endeavours.
The Governor made these remarks while meeting seven IFS officers of the 2011 batch at Bihar Lok Bhavan in Patna. The officers are presently touring the state as part of an in-service training programme. The meeting was also attended by the Governor’s Additional Chief Secretary, Deepak Kumar Singh, a 1992-batch IAS officer of the Bihar cadre, along with other officials.
During the course of the interaction, the Governor exhorted the visiting officers to cultivate a deeper acquaintance with Bihar’s Buddhist and cultural inheritance, with its old and illustrious tradition of learning inseparably associated with Nalanda, and with the revival of Nalanda University in its new incarnation. He laid stress upon the necessity of comprehending these matters with care and attention, remarking that diplomats had a substantial part to play in the development of the state.
The Governor further drew attention to Bihar’s strategic importance, pointing to its geographical situation and its significance as a border state. These considerations, he said, were not merely of academic interest but demanded a proper and sympathetic understanding on the part of those who represent the country abroad.
Turning to the question of the Bihari diaspora, the Governor emphasised the need to connect Biharis residing in foreign lands with the state’s developmental initiatives. He observed that diplomats should make effective use of their office and experience in the national interest, and that the talents and attainments of those who had gone forth from Bihar to distant shores should not be permitted to remain unconnected with the land of their origin.
He identified the Bihar Foundation as an institution of considerable importance which could help strengthen this engagement between the state and its overseas sons and daughters. He also stressed the need to make the foundation more effective in its working and to develop strong leadership for it, so that it might discharge its responsibilities with greater purpose and vigour.
The seven officers who met the Governor were Aakash Gupta, Kumar Gaurav, Manusmriti, Naveen Kumar, Nitesh Kumar, Dr Rajiv Ranjan and Tavishi Behl Pandey. All seven belong to the 2011 batch of the Indian Foreign Service and are in Bihar for an in-service training programme.
The Governor also briefed the officers on recent initiatives relating to the development of higher education in the state, acquainting them with the steps that had been taken in that direction and with the larger design that informed them.
The occasion would appear to have been one of those quiet but useful exchanges in which the machinery of the state and the representatives of the country abroad are brought into a closer and more fruitful relationship. The Governor’s remarks, taken together, amounted to a plea for a more thoughtful and better-informed diplomacy — one that does not confine itself to the routines of foreign office but takes account of the cultural and strategic realities of the regions from which the nation’s diplomats are drawn.
Bihar, with its Buddhist heritage, its historic association with Nalanda and its position upon the map, furnishes a case in point; and it was evidently the Governor’s wish that the officers should carry away with them a fuller sense of these things than they had brought.
The emphasis upon the Bihar Foundation was likewise not without significance. Such bodies, when they function well, serve as a bridge between the state and its people settled elsewhere, and the Governor’s call for stronger leadership and greater effectiveness may be read as an acknowledgment that the bridge, though useful, has not yet been made as firm as it might be.
Whether the foundation will rise to the occasion, and whether the officers in question will carry the Governor’s counsel into their future assignments, time alone will show; but the meeting itself may be accounted a step in the right direction, and one that might with advantage be repeated.
